Just another uneventful, ordinary day

8:01 am (Hawaii) Spent the past hour or so occupied with work, but now I'm back to see the Dow down "only" 290 points. Quite a comeback. It could be back to -400 in 5 minutes, I know, I know, I know. But FAZ is down below 67 and SocGen is down just 12.8% after being shredded to -22% earlier in the day. Everything has its limits and when the limits are stretched too far, just like Le Fly says, there's a rubber-band, snapback result. Eventually.

Gold continues to stay near its highs. DGP is at 64.50. But silver is roaring today. Probably a massive short-covering, but it was due. AGQ at 204.75 after hitting an intraday high of 207.03. Do the puppeteers dare naked it short silver back to 160? Possibly. I'm not touching ZSL or AGQ right now unless a new catalyst hits the market. AGQ is up 10.5% here, topping my Metals list.

AG (+10.6%), FSG, GSS, NUGT, PSLV, EXK, SVM, GPL, NGD, REE ... all at least 7% up for the day with less than 2 hours left. I wonder how well the silver and gold miners will hold up if the market continues to slide downhill. Is this a brief respite from the hellhole that miners had been buried in for weeks and months? Or is this move going to be long term since gold is becoming more popular with human beings who hate seeing their hard-earned fiat dollars turn to shit because of inflation and a fucked-up monetary system?

I tend to think it's the latter.

Might be a nice play in AAPL going into the bell. Now at 372, just off its high of the day. I got out at this level early in the session. I just don't see, hear, smell a catalyst that can sustain a run higher. Hmm...

Coffee, cream and METAL MANIA! (updated)

8:24 am (Hawaii) It rained overnight in Honolulu. Weather was cool for a July night. Perfect sleeping weather. I just got up after a productive workout last night, and it's almost the end of the session. Did I miss anything?

Hell yes. I remember Turd Ferguson noting yesterday that, technically, he expects gold to break out to a new high, and if that happened ... fully bullish. Turn on the TV. Turn on the computer. I sorta dread this. If gold breaks out, good. My XG and DGP will do nicely, even at small quantities. But I sold out of AGQ two days ago at a loss of $12/share. Small, small position, but still.

The Metals list I keep is almost all green (79%). It's a wipeout day for Metals bears. Only the bearish ETFs and ETNs are red. The indices are all up. XG is up 5%, DGP up 1.3%. AGQ is up 10% to 195. I sold at 172. Again, my timing ... not so good. I'm glad I held some gold stocks. It's like selling FAZ last Friday instead of holding until Monday. That cost me some. But the AGQ sell just cost me roughly $600. That's on a small position, really small. And if silver continues to rise, AGQ keeps going up at double warp speed, who knows, maybe to its all-time high at 382 (April 28).

I can imagine it's been a wonderful day so far for metal bugs. But Turd's site is down. Has it been overwhelmed by all the excitement? I need my Turd & Turdites fix.

James Turk, in his consistent, almost monotone voice, has been pounding the table for gold for a few months. He keeps repeating that this will be (not could be) a breakout summer for gold. Yesterday, he said it would be like the summer of 1982, when Mexico's default led to a golden rocketship. Holy cow, Mr. Turk is probably correct.

Everything at the top of my Metals list gapped up and is already enjoying bigger volume than yesterday: AGQ, AG, NUGT, EGO, SVM, SIL, DBS, XG, SLV, PSLV, GOLD, GDXJ, SLW, PLTM, EXK, REE, GDX, COPX ... wait, I take that back. PLTM hasn't matched yesterday's volume yet. It's all almost too good to be true. Like a setup. But on this kind of volume? I doubt it. It's usually a thin market that gets toyed with and peon traders like me get puppeteered.

Is it this simple? Obama threatens to yank Social Security, and the market reads it as a desperate threat and confirmation that QE3 is on? Or what's-his-face on Capitol Hill, the Republican who caved in and compromised on the Democrats' offer yesterday ... that's what's driving this? I haven't had time to check yet. Maybe after a bowl of cereal.

Update 8:51 am (Hawaii) On the 15-minute chart, AGQ has never exploded like it did this morning at the open. There was major volume two days ago, when shares sold off. But this morning was to the upside in a gap up. Trying find an entry point is difficult here. After closing yesterday at 177.68, there's a lot of room to pull back.

Has the CME mafia and the govt lost control of the price? Is the manipulation over? Probably not on both counts. But yesterday and today show that even in the middle of what's supposed to be the summer doldrums, the market may be too powerful to shackle 100% of the time — especially when it comes to gold. That is where old money resides. Old BIG money.

Update 9:07 am (Hawaii) Excellent post at SilverGoldSilver.com by guest writer SRSrocco about commercial shorts losing grip on silver. I'll add it to the library reading list later today. I got to eat some cereal. Kept watching AGQ but couldn't find a suitable point of entry. Now it's pulling back below 196, it looks like ... feeling desperate to get in near the highs is never a good feeling, and rarely leads to good results. I like the feeling of buying cheap, it's just that I really don't expect AGQ to go back near 177 any time soon.

Only a rocket ship loaded with 10 trillion ounces of gold and silver from another galaxy could save the US economy here. And that would be bullish for PMs. Production/GDP/jobs aren't about to spike high in the next several months. Not even space aliens can repair that.

Silver and gold stars

11:06 am (Hawaii) Today's silver stars?

GPL 3.82 +0.22 (+6.1%) volume slightly up

SLW 36.75 +1.77 (+5.1%) volume slightly up

EXK 9.81 +0.44 (+4.7%) volume slightly down

PAAS 46.44 +1.59 (+3.6%) volume slightly down

SIL 25.01 +0.67 (+2.8%) volume up big

AG 20.28 +0.42 (+2.1%) volume slightly up

SVM 10.37 +0.13 (+1.3%) volume slightly up

AGQ 177.38 +2.18 (+1.2%) volume even

All are afterhours prices. Not a lot of depth in silver gainers, but notable.

Gold stars:

NUGT 32.65 +1.92 (+6.3%) volume slightly down

GG 52.45 +2.04 (+4.1%) volume up big

NGD 10.75 +0.40 (+3.9%) volume slightly up

EGO 16.37 +0.55 (+3.6%) volume slightly up

XG 14.50 +0.46 (+3.3%) volume slightly up

GDX 57.36 +1.74 (+3.1%) volume up

ABX 47.14 +1.26 (+2.8%) volume up

GDXJ 36.30 +0.80 (+2.3%) volume up big

DGP 50.76 +0.74 (+1.5%) volume up big

UGL 53.80 (+1.4%) volume slightly up

Rare earth Thursday

5:23 am (Hawaii) This week's bull run continues. DJ up 142 points (+1.1%) to 12,404. Nas up 30 points (+1.1%) to 2,771. S&P up 12.25 points (+0.9%) to 1,319. Metals list is 47% green, 48% red, 5% neutral. Rare earths are tearing higher. MCP (+6.6) is up $3.76 to 60.78. It was at 52 last week, dipping on news of major insider sales. REE is up 6.1% to 11.14. AVL is higher by 5.8% to 6.89.

The rest of the metals are up fractionally, none more than 1.5% with a few exceptions like CU, COPX, SVM, XME.

XG (+1.3%) and GDXJ (+1.2%) have decent gains so far. It smells like the run is petering out.

My Regular watch list is 68% green, 32% red. Ford (+3.5%), TSO (+3.2%) and RLOC (+2.7%) are among the leaders. Is this the end of the end-of-month window dressing? Tomorrow is July 1, so we'll find out soon enough. Today's supposed to mark the end of QE2, but all signs point to almost no fear of a prolonged hiatus until QE3. It appears improbable, even impossible, for the Fed to rule out the option of printing more dollars. There is no tangible alternative on the table, nor the political will to truly explore a cure for the ailing system.

Is the American public willing to take the medicine necessary? Are the powers that be willing to go down so we can transition to a new system? Of course not, not when it means losing billions of dollars. But the lie can't last forever.

Update 5:43 am (Hawaii) Financials are up across the board. SCGLY (+3.1%), NBG (+2.9%), BBVA (+2.7%), STD (+2.4%), DB (+1.6%) showing strength across the Eurozone. JPM, C, GS up fractionally. BAC down 1.2% on bad news yesterday. IRE down 1.8%. Finnies basically leading the run this week.

Raquel Welch

Hitting for power

6:59 am (Hawaii) Just got up to another cool morning in the islands, a nice 73 degrees, partly cloudy, low humidity. The market is where it's hot. Dow up 91.96 (+0.78%), Nas up 47.31 (+1.8%), S&P +14.60 (+1.1%).

Silver is on fire and dominating the top of my Metals list, which is 79% green, 19% red. Unlike other up days, volume is huge so far, which has me intrigued.

AG 17.85, +7.1%
SVM 9.16, +6.9%
EXK 8.37, +6.5%
PAAS 30.36, +6.3%
NUGT 28.73, +5.5%
AVL 6.56, +5%
XG 11.99, +4.9%
SLW 32.57, +4.5%
EGO 13.99, +4%
SIL 23.46, +4%
GOLD 77.69, +3.5%
GDXJ 33.67, +3.16%

All of these upside plays are close to yesterday's volume or, like EXK and XG, have already surpassed it. How is this possible? US Dollar down, Euro up, Greece going through the formalities after the closing bell. Bernanke to speak tomorrow. Even AAPL is up 2.8% to 324.27.

Is it just about Greece and the Euro? I'd say it was a weak dead-cat bounce, but on this kind of volume? The finnies are up big. NBG (+7.4%), BBVA (+2.6%), STD (+2.4%), C (+1.8%), BAC (+1.1%), GS (+1%), GS (+1%), JPM (+0.6%) all up. FAZ down 2.9%.

Whatever the reason, EXK once again bounced off the 7.50-7.60 area. This is no place to chase here.

As for rare earths, AVL is hot on fair volume, MCP is up 1.3% to 53.11 on tiny volume, and REE is up 2% to 10.36, also on very small volume. They had their big run yesterday, but today isn't all bad at all. Looking forward, I'm leaning more toward trading in rare earths and/or holding a small long-term position. Otherwise, I'm still 90% cash, haven't made a trade in nearly two weeks. The game plan was to wait until tomorrow for a signal in either direction and I'm content waiting this out.

My Regular watch list is 87% green, 13% red. The big boys like AAPL, DIS, GOOG, NFLX are up, but on low volume. The smaller players like LULU are up on huge volume (+5%).

Euro up? Dollar up? Metals up?

9:29 am (Hawaii) Fell fast asleep the past several hours on this cool, wet Honolulu morning. Sleep in cool weather is always appreciated. So is a market that is not outright destroyed by the puppet masters. The indices are fractionally higher. My Metals list is 57% green, 41% red.

Gold (1541, +0.1%), Silver (35.99, +0.6%) are holding up after yesterday's Forex.com news. Platinum (-1.1%) and Copper (-0.6%). Palladium -0.3%).

SLW has held its gains (3%), along with today's leader, MCP (+7.3%), though MCP has lost a bit of its huge gain. GPL, REE, SVM, AVL all up big today. GG, PASS, NUGT, NGD and EXK up more than 1.3%.

As was the case last Thursday, today's gainers are up on scant volume. They are having a snack, a little bag of chips or half an apple or a cup of yogurt. This won't sustain them for the week.

As Greece and the Euro zone figure out their problems, financials are bracing for the worst. The finnies on my Debt Spiral list are all in the red again, though mostly less than -1%. My favorite play in this spiral is FAZ, which is near flat for the day. Again, volume is light and probably will be until Bernanke speaks on Wednesday.

My other favorites, little miners EXK (+1.5% to 7.82) and XG (+1.1% to 11.40) have low volume. Double-long gold ETN DGP is barely green (49.18).

In other words, this was a good day to sleep in.

AAPL has bounced off its low (310.50) and is at 314.91, down nearly 2%. Still an unhealthy indicator for the market and techs. Crude oil (93.25, +0.2%) flat. US Dollar up 3¢ to 75.52.

Update 10:19 am (Hawaii) Forgot to note that GLD and SLV traded anemically today after yesterday's Forex.com news. GLD traded 19.2 million shares on Friday, just 10.4 mil today. SLV had 23.6 mil on Friday, 21.0 mil today. Did fear creep in? Maybe. I still think things are flat as a banana pancake until Bernanke on Wednesday.

Tuesday lunch munch

How's the ice down there?

7:15 am (Hawaii) Just woke up to a sunny, cool morning in the islands. Could not get that darn wireless connection going for an hour, so I'm out of bed and sitting at the desk. Just as well. There's a new Max Keiser report out, some good stuff with David Morgan about Utah's new precious metals coinage enacted into law.

China's inflation number (5.5%) met expectations, but is that really enough to slow bearish momentum?

My Metals list is 71% green, 28% red. The glaring common denominator, though, is that volume is anemic. Though we're just past halfway for the day, volume is scant, just like it was a few days ago when the market slide halted for a day. Top gainers so far: REE (+6.7% to 6.81), AVL (+6.6% to 6.28), EXK (+6.2% to 8.13), AG (+5.9% to 17.44), GPL (+4.9% to 3.00). That's two up days for GPL. SVM, AGQ, NGD, MCP and NUGT are also more than 3% up. A lot of big percentage gainers, but with so few shares traded, this could easily get shredded by the alien machines before the closing bell. My hunch is the gains will be pared somewhat, but still finish up nicely for the day. But with the poor volume, the downtrend will resume tomorrow.

TWN (-4.5%), ZSL (-4.3%), SCO (-3.8%), DUST (-3.8%) and FAZ (-3.4%) are the worst losers thus far.

Dow Jones +1.2%, NAS +1.5%, S&P +1.4%.

My Regular watch list is 86% green, 14% red, but again, volume is miniscule. There aren't many sellers, but there are even fewer buyers. It's the machines keeping the market above thin ice. AAPL is up 1.5% to 331.44, but volume is just 6.9 mil shares compared to yesterday's 11.7 mil.

(video) Max Keiser: Economic melt-through, David Morgan (June 14 2011)
Zero Hedge: Standard Chartered: '3 factors will drive gold to $5,000' (June 14 2011)
Standard Chartered: In gold we trust (full report) (June 14 2011)

A crude hump day

5:52 am (Hawaii) There's crude oil up 3.8%. There's LNKD up 0.8%. The rest of the greenies on my Metals list is sparse. At 19% and mostly bear ETFs, it's a supremely negative day so far for the metals. DUST is up 4.7%, UCO rising higher on news that there's no news out of that Middle East meeting on production, ZSL up 2% ... Spot Gold is down to 1536 and Spot Silver at 36.62 (after dipping close to 36.00).

MCP (-8.4%), SVM (-8.1%), EXK (-7%), REE (-5.6%) and VL (-5.2%) are just a few of the players getting pinata-ed today. XG (-3.4%), AGQ (-2.2%), PAAS (-2.9%), it's fugly. It's not shocking. It's summer and the doldrums are here. I'm glad I mistakenly set my alarm for 1:21 pm instead of 1:21 am. How many traders opened positions in ZSL yesterday? It closed at 17.11 and opened today at 17.57. Now trading at 17.36. Unless you opened a position yesterday, you're in the red today. Did I need to 4+ hours of sleep for that? Naaah.

I'm now down almost $300 on OWW even though the position is teeny. This is a great reminder of why I stopped playing (getting played by) penny stocks in the first place years ago. The price almost always provides all the explanation necessary. But down this deep, near it's all-time low, it's pointless to sell. Another piece of positive news and OWW goes back up. It could double, triple, quadruple. Even with a Vegas-play-money mentality in this play, it still sucks to be holding the bag.

In case you're not convinced that OWW is a horrible buy, go back some years. OWW was a rumored takeover target with a buyout price of $26 to $28. Talk about cruel jokes. Priceline they were not.

Turd: Hoping to be wrong (June 8 2011)

(video) KSL News: Utah precious metals currency takes effect (June 1 2011)

Soaring over hump day

11:06 am (Hawaii) Nasdaq up 1.1% today. S&P 500 up 0.9% and Dow up 0.65%. My Metals List is 72% green and still active after hours. XG with a huge 12.6% move out of the blue. I hate it when my favorite metal stocks move without me. Gold and silver plays moved well. GPL (3.04, +8.9%), AGQ 173.29 (+7.3%), EXK 8.89 (+6.2%), UCO 48.06 (+5.1%), SVM 10.50 (+4.8%), AG 17.73 (+4.5%). Just a lot of miners on the big-plus size, but is this based on a dead-cat bounce or fundamentals? Does it matter.

Not really. For silver fanatics, best that the sector rallies modestly each day than with huge swoops higher, lest the CME Mafia bust all kneecaps again. With margin requirements as is, plus the fear of CME built into the collective big brain of retail and hedgies, I'm not expecting a crazy fast move by metals.

AAPL up 1.2% to 340.09. It was below 331 yesterday and Karen Finerman on Fast Money said she bought in. I still love AAPL. It's the one stock I have a crush on. But volume today was relatively light, so I'm not in. Yet.

Made a late-day trade in AGQ (after waking up). In at 172.33, out at 171.66. Naturally, AGQ rode higher and got back to 173.50 or so after hours. I don't regret cutting the trade with a tiny loss. There will be more opportunities.

Update 11:35 am (Hawaii) XG is up more than 9% after hours, but there is no news anywhere. The news that did affect the stock was out Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, end-of-Q1 holdings showed that hedgie Eric Sprott allocated a new stake in XG, among other miners.

Sprott can say Spot Silver is going to $100/oz and convince most people that he's bullish as ever, but you can't fault the guy for playing the market. He sold a chunk of PSLV shares recently to acquire more physical, or that's what he said publicly. I believe him. I'd do the same.

Gold is going to run, probably not bigbig, but it's overdue, and demand is not waning among central banks globally. Even with a delay in QE3, gold will be more stable than most plays (other than cash). Kick start QE3 and silver will vroom up again, with gold in the sidecar churning higher, as well. That's my guess.

But what made XG move from 9.46 (today's close) to 10.36 after hours? News of approval for a mine development at Cerro Moro was positive, but that news was out yesterday (Tuesday).

Sprott: New stake in XG (May 16 2011)

Marketwire: Extorre receives approval for Cerro Moro (May 17 2011)

Update 12:56 pm (Hawaii) The afterhours price of XG has been fixed and is now back to 9.46. Glad that was straightened out!